The Wanganui Chronicle. " Nulla Dies Sine Linea." MONDAY, MAY 12, 1919. THE ESSENCE OF BOLSHEVISM.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXVI, Issue 7566, 12 May 1919, Page 4

The Wanganui Chronicle. " Nulla Dies Sine Linea." MONDAY, MAY 12, 1919. THE ESSENCE OF BOLSHEVISM.

Even in this country there are a few people, possibly sincere and wellmeaning, who profoss to beliove that l:olsh3vism is being misrepresented to the world, nnd that the stories of it* horrors have little or no foundation in fact. Those who entertain any doubls about the matter would do well to study the illuminating account of tli-j principles of Bolshevism which Dr. Arthur Shadwell has contributed to th*» ' Nineteenth Century an 4 After." It is based on sundry pronouncements :>y lenin and Trotsky; official resolutions 'it the Bolshevik Central Executive Committee, and other and self-reveal-ing documents which have come into bis hands. "Lenin appears to be the Inain of the whole movement; he does Jhe thinking and planning. His is toe master mind. . . He resembles Toror a Mad Mullah. He is to completely obsessed by the sanctity and righteousness of his cause that ail p-eans become lawful in his eyes." Bolshevism, as Lenin's utterances clearly show, is an attempt to realise the rolicy of the manifesto drawn up \>y Marx and Engels for the Communist I eague. It is a policy of complete revolution, political and economic, carried out by force. The first step i*. the conquest of political power by the "proletariat,"' which will then use that power to wrest all capital from the 1 bourgeoise/' and take the means o! production mto its own hands Bol?bevisrti is not anarchism, though Jt nay produce anarchy. If anarchism Le go-as-you-please for everybody, Bolshevism is go-as-you-please for everylody. Lenin pours contempt on «11 socialists who flinch from what he holds to be the logical implications of social* ism. "It would," he told the Bolshevist executive committee last April, '■ be the greatest folly and most sensek jss Utopianism to suppose that th<3 tiansition from capitalism to soeialis.n is possible without compulsion and ivitho.it distatorshop. The Marxiua theory has long ago, and in the most I ositive manner, taken a stand against this retty-bourgeois-demoeratjc aIH anarchist nonsense. . . Every great ievolution, but especially the socialise revolution—even if there had been no external war—is unthinkable without to. internal war." Those sections .i revolutionaries in Russia which coritspond to the Fabian societies, the in-

dependent labour parties, and so on m British lands, he denounces as "lackeys of the bourgeoise!" There is a grim humour in their sympathetic defence r>t Bolshevism, fofe. Levin, who himself avows a policy of "ruthless suppression" without compunction, would soon make short work of them. He will have nothing but tihe class war, aimed at the extermination of the bourgeoisie, and waged with relentiess determination. Hence in Russia the civil war was carried on and extended," until the bourgeoisie "were sufficiently exterminated or suppressed to permit the Bolsheyised Soviets co approach the task of i©construction on the new basis; and tihis, as Dr. ShakU well observes, is the most instructive part of the story, as handled by Lenin. The country had fallen into ev»T deeper distress, disorder, and famine.

'Before us," says Lenin, "lies at this jcoment the root and centre question oi the whole social life of mankind— Mt conquer starvation, or at least to mitigate at once the immediate pangs at starvation which have seized the two I capitals and dozens of districts in agri-! cultural Russia." Even Bolsheviks had ! begun to despair, but Lenin chides j rhera, and stts forth hre programme of remedies. "It is necessary to introuuce absolutely regular work, so that j it runs like clockwork. We shall op' pose \to suggestions ot free tiadev <n corn, etc.), our own solution through ! the introduction of proletarian discipline among the ranks of the labouring \ I eople. The difficulties are immea- • curable, but every difficulty is to he ' met by new efforts of organisation and ; discipline." They must, he poio.es j out, have strictest finance and con-i ixifcntious book-keeping; they must in-; troduoj scientific management and j payments by results. Moreover'! they cannot get on without .In I ancial and industrial experts—a cla-:s i i/elongmg to the bourgeoisie and sup-1 pressed with \it. No matter, their! services must be hired at very large s&laries, 25,000 roubles a year. Lenin r.dmits tins sounds reactionary^ and * will cost millions, but it is indispensable until they learn thefce arts for themselves. And more than all that; they must submit to a. single controlling will, an absolute dictatorship.' 'Every great machine industry—that is, the very sotu-ce of material production and the basis of Socialism—Lden.ands the unqualified and strictest unity in the will-which guides the common labours of hundreds, thonsands, and ten thousands of men. Technically," economically, and historically, this necessity is obvious, and would be recognised as a primary condition by alt who had thought over Socialism. But how can the strictest unity of will lie secured? By the subordination oi the will of thousands to the will of ft single person. When ideal recognition and discipline on the part of all engaged in a common task are present, this subordination may rather resemble the gentle leading of an orchestral conductor. It may take the sharp form of a dictatorship when they are not present. But either way the unquestioning submission to a single will h unconditionally necessary for the success of industrial, processes organised after the type of a great machine industry. For the railways it is fJoitbly and trebly necessary. . The revolution has just struck off the ddest, strongest, and heaviest fetters that bound the masses tinder the knout. That was yesterday, but today the same revolution demands, and that in the interests of Socialism, tho unquestioning subordination of thj rmsses under the single will nl the di. rector of the process." Thus by the irony of fate, is Lenin brought back to a policy of autocracy in politics, : n* oustry, and socnl life far more drastic than ihat of the old regime, but only to find that the workers as well as thu bourgeoisie revolt against it. Hig new Ijranny has to rely on the Red Guards i!or its preservation, even more implicitly than the Czardom did on its police and Cossacks.